


i'm subtle like a lion's cage

by vulpesvortex



Category: The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - All Fandoms
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 14:54:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpesvortex/pseuds/vulpesvortex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bottom of his stomach drops out in surprise, sparking memories of falling, falling, falling, and it’s slowly coming back to him now, the death drop and the jerk of his body that felt like it nearly snapped his spine, Hulk’s eyes sad under thick, frowning brows. </p><p>(Or, Hulk drags Clint off like a damsel in the middle of battle, which surprisingly turns out to be harder on Bruce's dignity than Clint's.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm subtle like a lion's cage

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to my wonderful beta [ornina](http://ornina.tumblr.com) for looking this over for me and cheerleading me in the middle of the night. Any remaining mistakes are mine. 
> 
> This was written as a companion to [this drawing](http://foxesonstilts.tumblr.com/post/22919652019/i-want-a-fic-where-clint-gets-hurt-in-battle-and) I posted on Tumblr. (Beware: non-explicit but probably NSFW.)
> 
> Title from Interpol's _Not Even Jail_.

****It happens so quickly, just a flash of color and claws in the corner of his eyes and his attention diverted by an errant explosion, just a step backwards. It can’t take more than half a second and then Clint is falling, plummeting, dropping like a rock, whatever you like. He’s about to become a sidewalk pancake, Clint realizes with a surge of panic. He tries to nock an arrow, straining backwards to grab one from his quiver while trying to work the controls with his other hand. He has about a split-second to inventorize the lurching of his stomach, to realize that his breath is leaving his lungs in a scream, to see Tony and Thor up high in the sky battling enemy jets miles above Clint, before he crashes into a statue protruding from the ornamental façade of the building he’s falling down. He hits what he thinks may be an angel on the way down, a gargoyle, a ledge. Eventually he gets the wind knocked out of him when he spread-eagles over a flagpole. He tries to grab onto the pole as he slides off, gasping and dizzy, but a rending, stinging pain spasms through his chest as he raises his arm and his fingers slip, numb.  
  
_Ribs_ , Clint thinks, dazed with pain and probably a fair amount of head trauma.  
  
_Stupid ass way to go, really._  
  
There is a wrenching sound of metal, like a bus giving way under a couple of tons of muscle, screeching and whining in protest. It sounds close. Clint can’t tell, blood in his eyes and spinning in the air, but that’s okay. He’s not sure he’d want to see.  
  
_This is it. Any second now.  
  
_ And then…nothing.  
  
His whole body jerks as his descent is suddenly arrested. A crushing pressure surrounds his ankle and leg, which gives way to a more tempered force after a moment, and from the brush of his fingers against the concrete he concludes that he is hanging upside down. Looking up through a haze of blood and sunlight, he can see a green blur.  
  
“Thanks, big guy,” Clint croaks.  
  
Hulk makes a soft, rumbling _ruh_ sound deep in his throat, head tilted. He turns Clint over gently.  
  
Clint’s knees buckle; the sidewalk rushes up to meet his face. His consciousness shatters apart in agony and relief.

 

***

 

Natasha dodges a lunge from one of the raging space monsters, spins and delivers a swift roundhouse kick to the back of its neck. Bone snaps under the force of the impact and Natasha rolls with the motion of the body dropping to launch herself up at her next opponent.  
  
It’s Thursday, so of course they’re fighting aliens. They were due for their monthly alien invasion; not that she’d rather rescue kittens, but after five attempts the things were rather starting to lose their shine. She wouldn’t be surprised if there is some kind of intergalactic bet up.  
  
This week’s contenders are a race of short, bulky humanoids, rodent-like with six-fingered claws that have a metallic look to them. They can’t breathe in the Earth’s atmosphere, so now they’re all running around with complicated metal faceplates stuck over their mouths, looking like a bunch of mutated Hannibal Lecters.  
  
Natasha is about to lunge for another one of the aliens when all of a sudden the building behind her collapses. The Hulk comes pounding through the falling rubble, clutching something against his chest, and speeds past her. He runs like a large ape cradling an infant, using both legs and an arm, the other arm curved under his ribs. The ground shakes, street lanterns rattling, and several more walls come down before the Hulk passes out of sight (if not out of hearing).  
  
“What the- Where the hell did the Hulk just run off to?!”  
  
“Looks like he’s moving towards the edge of the city,” Tony supplies over the comms. “Anyone got a read on what happened?”  
  
“It looked like it was _holding_ _Clint._ ”  
  
“Jarvis? Can you scan CCTV to find out what happened?”  
  
A short pause as JARVIS scans the camera footage. “It appears Agent Barton fell off a building, sir.”

 

***

 

At first there is only cold.  
  
With his head thick with sleep, Clint thinks only in sensations. He is cold, and tired, and he aches.  
  
On second thought, he aches _a lot._  
  
His shoulder is crusted with dried blood, which pulls at the skin every time he breathes, dragging along with the sharp spike of pain that flares through his ribs. His lips are dry and also crusted over with what tastes like dried blood and dust and saliva. The earth is hard and unforgiving under Clint’s cheekbone.  
  
Warm blood has soaked through his vest at his stomach, trickling down his fingertips and coagulating against his palm. The drip is slow but it hasn’t been completely staunched even after however-long-he’s-been-out. That could be bad. Clint recognizes he should probably do an inventory of the damage he has sustained, but moving seems like too much of a hassle and promises to hurt like a bitch besides.  
  
For now, it feels so tempting to just keep his eyes closed and enjoy the tickle of warm breath against the back of his neck, and not worry about whether he has been captured and/or is going to die.  
  
Clint cracks open an eye.  
  
Behind him, a presence is pressed up against his back that up till now he had assumed was a wall or a pile of pillows or bags, but now that his attention has been called to it, he knows is definitely a body. A live body, judging from the small shivers he can feel running through its frame, trembling against Clint’s spine. The weight of a hand presses between his shoulder blades like a gentle nudge.  
  
Clint has several procedures for dealing with waking up in unknown locations, both ones stipulated by SHIELD and others developed by him over the course of numerous nighttime adventures, and, depending on the circumstances, the results of these scenarios vary wildly. Some end in a superspy deathmatch, others end in him getting his ass reamed by Coulson, and others result in really hot early-morning sex. Occasionally it ends in the walk of shame back to base, and one really memorable time, it was the day after his birthday and he woke up on the floor of a strip club with a bottle of vodka under his armpit.  
  
That last one had been Natasha’s fault.  
  
The point is, there are many possibilities here, and Clint gets his wires crossed for a second trying to realign the uncomfortable, rocky forest floor and the bruising with the solid warmth against his back that says _bed partner_.  
  
The person behind him makes a pitiful, sad little sniffling sound against Clint’s neck.  
  
Gingerly, heedful of the ribs he vaguely remembers cracking, Clint turns his head to chance a glance over his shoulder.  
  
And looks straight into the face of Bruce Banner, closer than he’s ever seen him. Bruce is sleeping fitfully, frowning, and his naked shoulder trembles where it curves against the edge of Clint’s vision.  
  
The bottom of his stomach drops out in surprise, sparking memories of falling, falling, _falling_ , and it’s slowly coming back to him now, the death drop and the jerk of his body that felt like it nearly snapped his spine, Hulk’s eyes sad under thick, frowning brows.  
  
“Oh,” Clint hears himself say, and congratulates himself on his eloquency.  
  
He’s unsure of what the procedure is here, whether he wakes Bruce or just lies here like a human shock blanket until the other man regains consciousness.  
  
Bruce shivers again, curls up as if to get even closer like he isn’t already pressed up against every inch of Clint’s back, and what is up with that, it’s a bit chilly but there’s really no need for Bruce’s teeth to chatter like that, and -  
  
_Oh_.  
  
Naked.  
  
Clint cranes his neck to check, and _yes, definitely, yes_ , and then somehow manages to put his ribs into absolute  
breathe-or-pass-out searing agony.  
  
He spits curses into the dirt through clenched teeth, eyes watering, and doesn’t really notice Bruce stirring until he hears a startled yelp right next to his ear. Bruce uses two hands to lever himself away from Clint’s back, shoving, and Clint squeaks, curling in on himself.  
  
“Ow-ow-ow.”  
  
“Oh god, I’m sorry!”  
  
“Hrrk,” Clint spits into the dirt one more time and wipes his mouth roughly. His head spins a little so he takes care turning himself over slowly, bracing himself. When he can finally see Bruce, the man is sitting a couple of feet away from him, nude and covered in grime.  
  
“Hiya there, cowboy.” Clint taps a finger against the edge of an imaginary hat.  
  
“Um,” Bruce says, looking panicked. His eyes are flashing around, taking in their surroundings. They appear to be in a valley in some kind of mountain range, as far as Clint can tell, enclosed by forested slopes on all sides. The air is chilly, twilight having come and gone, and there is a light breeze rustling the pine trees.  
  
Bruce shivers. He pulls his knees up against his chest, rubbing his arms to get warm. “You, uh, you got any idea where we are?”  
  
“Not really.”  
  
“Oh.” Bruce looks away again, as if Clint is the one sitting stark-o across from him. Clint can’t help but smile a little. “Look, this is probably my fault. I’m sorry.”  
  
“How so?” Clint says, even though he knows.  
  
“I’m pretty sure _you_ didn’t drag the other guy here.” One hand goes to the back of Bruce’s neck, embarrassment flushing his cheeks. “And I’m, uh, also sorry about the, uh.” He motions between himself, naked, and Clint.  
  
“It’s okay. I’m pretty sure I’m not the first person you’ve flashed, right?”  
  
“Oh god,” Bruce moans, hiding his face in his hands.  
  
“Aw, man, it’s not that bad. You look like John McClane about two-thirds through _Die Hard_.” In truth, Bruce looks like nothing so much as a puppy that has just crawled out of a particularly dirty puddle, but Clint isn’t about to tell him that. “I especially like the little smudge there under your eye. Very manly.”  
  
“Please stop talking.”  
  
“I’m pretty sure that if I stop making fun of you, this will get awkward really fast.” Clint grins at Bruce, who is peeking at him over his hands still looking thoroughly embarrassed.  
  
He wriggles a bit, trying to figure out a way to get closer to Bruce without putting any of his limbs through hell. “Come on, Doc. You dragged me into the wilderness like a damsel in distress, can’t you smile a little?”  
  
Bruce’s face is suddenly serious, the flush and shyness dropped away like a falling curtain. “You’re hurt.”  
  
“Yeah, sorta? I kind of took a nose-dive onto Madison, met some problems on the way down. I think I cracked a rib or five?”  
  
“Show me,” Bruce says, looking concerned. He unfolds himself and crawls over to Clint, all self-consciousness forgotten.  
  
“I’m fine. There’s nothing you can do about broken ribs anyway.”  
  
“I need to check you’re not bleeding out on the inside.”  
  
“Pretty sure if I was bleeding internally I’d be dead by now.”  
  
“Shut up.” Bruce pulls on his vest, eyes widening when Clint lets his hand fall away and reveals the bloody gash on his stomach. “Help me get this off.”  
  
“You do it. You’re the one who wants to see, and moving hurts.”  
  
Bruce pauses. “Aside from the ribs and _that_ ,” he nods at Clint’s belly, “what else hurts?”  
  
_Everything_ , Clint wants to say, but that would be whining and unhelpful. He forces himself to close his eyes and check himself over mentally, discounting bruises and cuts to find any serious injuries. His leg throbs worse than everything else. “Left ankle,” he says eventually.  
  
“Okay, I’m gonna have a look at that in a minute, then, but first I want to see your chest.”  
  
Clint’s eyebrow lifts.  
  
“Oh, shut up,” Bruce grouses and rolls his eyes.  
  
“You’ve been telling me to shut up a lot. I’m hurt, Doc.”  
  
“Yes, you are. Now cooperate.”  
  
Together they wrestle off Clint’s vest and undershirt without raising Clint’s arms, being careful with the places where the cloth sticks to his skin. Bruce’s eyes are immediately focused on Clint’s chest, taking in the map of bruises on his skin. One dark purple bruise runs diagonally across his chest where he hit the flagpole, blending into the bruising on his side at the lower edge.  
  
“Fucking hell.”  
  
Clint finds himself flushing a little under the scrutiny. “Hey, you should…”  
  
“Hmm?” Bruce flicks his eyes up to Clint’s face for the first time since his vest came off, frowning in concentration.  
  
Clint holds up his undershirt. “Here.”  
  
“Thanks.” Bruce smiles, shy again. The black wifebeater is a little too big for him, so that it gapes at the top and drapes a little over Bruce’s hips. “Sorry.”  
  
“’S fine.’ Clint coughs.  
  
“Okay, I’m going to feel your ribs now, okay? Tell me if I hurt you too much.”  
  
Bruce’s fingers are gentle on Clint’s chest, skimming over his sternum down to his sides and pressing lightly here and there, stopping immediately when Clint hisses, then moving on again.  
  
“You didn’t cough up any blood, did you? Do you feel dizzy or weak?”  
  
“No, Doc.”  
  
“Well, then the good news is, none of the ribs are dislocated. Bad news, you definitely fractured some.” He peers at the cut for a moment. “And this needs stitches.”  
  
“I got a first aid kit, if you can..? It’s in one of my pockets somewhere.”  
  
“Oh! Yeah, I can, actually. I stitched myself up plenty of times.” Bruce shrugs. “The things you learn being on the run from the man, right?”  
  
Clint is starting to feel woozy. Sitting up hurts and it feels nice to just relax into Bruce’s care, to stop bickering and let Bruce look after him whatever way he sees fit.  
  
“We should get some painkillers into you too; it’s the only thing we can do for the broken ribs.”  
  
Clint nods his assent, lowering himself down onto the forest floor as Bruce digs out the first aid kit from one of the pouches on his belt. Bruce empties out the contents, setting them out in a line in front of him before selecting the items that he needs. He injects Clint with the single dose of morphine, giving it a couple of minutes to start working its magic while he disinfects the wound before he starts stitching it up, one hand on Clint’s stomach to hold him still.  
  
“I would sure love to have some whisky right now,” Clint muses.  
  
“Alcohol and painkillers don’t mix.” Bruce flicks his eyes up to Clint’s for a moment. He doesn’t seem so worried anymore.  
  
“And that would matter, if I actually had any whisky on me.”  
  
Soon, Bruce is done with the stitching and moves on to unlacing Clint’s boots to check his ankle.  
  
“Clint, this is..” he breathes.  
  
“What?”  
  
When Clint looks down at his foot, he can see that his ankle is swollen and bruised nearly black. Bruce has rolled up his pant leg to show where the discoloration extends all the way up his shin, forming a distinct hand-shape the size of a bicycle wheel around his lower leg.  
  
“Oh wow.”

 

***

 

The Quinjet comes to pick them up a couple of hours later, courtesy of a short comm-call to the Avengers Mansion and the GPS in Clint’s communication card. (“Lucky you’re not out here on your own,” Clint had said, smirking at Bruce still half-naked in Clint’s shirt, “they’d have a hard time tracking _you_.”)  
  
“So, you guys had enough of the great outdoors?” Tony yells from the open cargo door of the hovering plane, laughing like this is the funniest thing in the world.  
  
“Hardy-fucking-har, Stark,” Clint growls, pushing past Tony into the plane. He’s really not in the mood to be teased, and when he sees Natasha in the pilot seat he wants to cry because of course they would send the two people who absolutely will never let him live this down. They probably volunteered, the assholes.  
  
Behind him, Bruce shuffles onto the plane after him. “Where, uh, where are we exactly?”  
   
“The Great Smoky Mountains,” Tony grins. “You took quite a jog, big guy.”  
  
Clint can feel Natasha watching him watch Bruce, who looks uncomfortable and small in the belly of the ship, skinny legs poking out from under his shirt. Bruce is tugging at the edge of the borrowed wifebeater to cover as much of himself as possible, somehow still managing to scrounge up a smile for Tony’s barbs despite his shivering.  
  
Natasha presses her lips together, one eyebrow raised, and it’s hardly outright laughter but it’s the closest she’ll get, and Clint feels the burn of it nonetheless. “Do not. Say. A fucking. Word.”  
  
“Aww, I’m sure you looked very lovely swooning in the arms of the beast.”  
  
“And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty, and stayed its hand from killing!” Tony joins in, pressing his hand against his sternum as though touched to his very core. He mimes brushing away a tear, because he’s an asshole.  
  
“Just fly the freaking plane, _please_.”  
  
“Sure thing, Miss Darrow.” Natasha salutes him as she turns back towards the controls.  
  
Exhausted, Clint carefully lowers himself down on the bench lining the cargo hold, lying on his back to avoid putting pressure on his ribs. It still hurts like hell to tense his abdominal muscles as he lowers himself and he has to twist a little to get his legs onto the bench. He bites his hand to muffle a cry, hoping the others are too busy needling Bruce to notice.  
  
Darkness clouds around the edge of his consciousness, filtering out Tony’s rapid babble and Natasha’s quietly merciless sarcasm. The glare of the fluorescent lights overhead is unpleasant, but at least it’s something to focus on that’s not the ragged, scraping pain in his chest. The morphine wore off some time ago.  
  
Someone settles next to him on the bench; Clint barely notices.  
  
“Here,” a soft, kind voice says. Bruce, then.  
  
Clint tries to say something, say hi, ask Bruce how he’s holding up, but talking is too much effort, so instead he just ends up giving a vague smile in what he thinks is Bruce’s direction. He’s half-aware of a damp swab being swiped over his skin followed by a quick pinprick of pain in his left arm, a thumb brushing away the drop of blood that wells up.  
  
“You’ll feel better soon,” Bruce promises.  
  
“’Nks,” Clint manages. Nasals are easier: you don’t have to open your mouth.  
  
True enough, the throbbing in Clint’s side eases up soon after, and Clint risks opening one eye, the other clenched shut against the light.  
  
“Hey,” he says woozily, peering up at Bruce. He can feel himself grinning. “Where’d you get those pants?”  
  
“You choose now to go all loopy on me?” Bruce says, smiling back. His hand settles in Clint’s hair, rubbing gently at his scalp. Clint _hmmms_. “You should go to sleep before Tony decides to play 20 Questions with you.”  
  
“Sir, yes, sir,” Clint mumbles, already slipping into slumber.

 

***

 

The hospital wants to keep Clint overnight for observation even if there isn’t much they can do for him that couldn’t be done at the mansion, and Clint gives in only because he’s so tired he doesn’t really give a shit where he sleeps so long as he gets to sleep soon.  
  
The next morning, Natasha stops by around nine to drop off his bow, rescued from the battle site after his and Hulk’s disappearance. Clint is grateful; he feels better for having it within reach, perched against his bedside table. The others drop in too, bearing magazines and sweets and accounts of yesterday’s thwarted invasion. Steve has bruises on his arms (and god knows where else) that are already fading to yellow and Tony, now that Clint is awake enough to notice, holds himself rather stiffly. He will learn later that Iron Man got blown backwards through several skyscrapers by a blast from one of the bigger spaceships. Thor is his usual cheerful self, his voice booming loudly through at least 3 floors of the hospital, despite having sustained a rather vicious-looking black eye.  
  
Bruce comes by on his own after lunch, peeking around the door first to make sure Clint’s not asleep, which makes something fond and tender uncurl in Clint’s stomach.  
  
“Don’t worry, I’m up.”  
  
“Good,” Bruce says. He shuffles into the room, looking a little unsure.  
  
“Sit,” Clint says cheerfully, motioning at one of the chairs the others left behind. “You don’t have to go again in five minutes or something, right? This place is driving me up the wall.”  
  
“No, I- my experiments will keep for a while. I wanted to see how you were doing.”  
  
“I’m good. Probably thanks to you.”  
  
“Mm-hmm.” Bruce doesn’t sound convinced.  
  
“Bruce, you caught me after a 100ft drop. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be splattered all over Madison Avenue.”  
  
“And then I dragged you a hundred miles away from the nearest hospital.”  
  
“Didn’t need a hospital. I had you, didn’t I?”  
  
Bruce sighs miserably. Clint’s foot is poking out from under the covers, still black and blue almost all the way up to his knee. “Being abducted by the Hulk can’t have been pleasant.”  
  
“I wasn’t really conscious for most of the ride, to be honest. And this may be news to you, but Hulk doesn’t exactly scare me as much as you think. He’s a gentle giant, really.” Clint smirked. “It was sort of awesome, like something out of King Kong, you know?“  
  
“But look at this!” Bruce gestures wildly at Clint’s ankle. “He _hurt_ you!”  
  
“Hey, hey, hey! You saved my life, okay? If the other guy hadn’t snatched me out of the air like a hacky sack I’d be a bloody pulp, so don’t you dare beat yourself up over this. If anything, I’m flattered the big guy likes me so much.”  
  
Bruce _hmm_ s, still looking subdued and guilty, but there isn’t much more Clint can say if this doesn’t convince him. They sit in silence for a while, not exactly uncomfortable. Bruce looks like he’s trying to figure some things out for himself, so Clint shuts up and just lets him think for a bit until he seems to come to some sort of decision. Because Clint’s watching him, he can see when Bruce’s eyes fall on the stack of periodicals on his bedside table and then tries not to look at them.  
  
“Are those-?”  
  
Clint pulls out the _Playboy_ and _Playgirl_ from the pile, scattering a few of the less saucy magazines. “Yeah, Tony thought I needed some entertaining. Considerate, huh?”  
  
Clint can’t resist teasing a little, offering the magazines to Bruce. “You want some of these? I don’t really read a lot of magazines; I like comedy sites and books, really.” Clint glances at the covers, shrugs. “I’m not sure which one you’d want? This one has an interesting bit by Palahniuk, though.”  
  
To his credit, Bruce doesn’t blush nearly as much as Clint expects him to. He waves Clint off, smiling from underneath his mess of curls. “Nah, I’m fine. Besides I think you’re gonna need them more than me, I just heard the doctor say they wanna keep you for another night.”  
  
“Seriously?” Clint groans, “there’s nothing wrong with me!”  
  
Bruce gives him a look that says it’s a good thing he’s concussed, or he’d be getting his ass handed to him.  
  
“Come on, Bruce, babe, help a guy out, will you? Just grab me some crutches, I am hauling ass out of here.”  
  
“I am not breaking you out of hospital.”  
  
“If you don’t help me out, I’m gonna make you pick one of these and read it out to me.”  
  
Bruce shrugs, looking unyielding and amused. “Do your worst.”  
  
“You’re no fun, Banner,” Clint says, but his smiling lips make him a liar.

 

***

 

Two weeks after Clint finally gets out of the hospital, Bruce disappears. Not missing-disappears, but avoiding-Clint-disappears. Clint wonders if it’s the whole spontaneous nudity thing, although it seems strange to get weird about it now instead of immediately after it first happened.  
  
He’s been flirting with Bruce more relentlessly than usual, though, so maybe the man has finally cracked and decided to hide in his lab until Clint gets the hint.  
  
So Clint hangs out in the den with Steve while he draws, and questions Thor about his love life - which the man is completely unashamed about - just to see how many of Thor’s sex stories he can take and how long it will be before Steve’s ears turn that particular shade of tomato red. He tries not to look like he’s pining too much.  
  
Natasha nudges him in the side during movie night, her expression sympathetic but firm, and Clint knows that she knows. He shakes his head. It’s still too early. If Bruce is really avoiding him, he doesn’t want to know for sure.  
  
At the end of the fifth day, Clint decides that enough is enough and he finally makes his way down to Bruce’s lab, only to find the place completely deserted. A large collection of petri dishes sits on the counter next to an open ledger full of Bruce’s scribbled notes. Clint walks around the lab for a while, picking up pens and post-it notes, resisting the urge to fiddle with the microscope or the mass-spectrometer or any of the other expensive-looking instruments. He hangs around for a while to see if Bruce just popped out, but after ten minutes it’s probably fair to assume Bruce isn’t coming back any time soon, so Clint tries to think of other places the man could be hanging out.  
  
When a scope of Tony’s workshop, the den and the kitchen yields no fruit, Clint makes his way up to the bedrooms, trying not to look too conspicuous lingering outside Bruce’s door as he psyches himself up for a confrontation.  
  
“Bruce?” His voice trails off abruptly when he spots Bruce in the bed, fast asleep. He almost misses him, with the way he lies curled in a ball on his side, tucked around a pillow, just the top of his head poking out under the covers. Bruce is covered by at least three blankets, and when he considers it Clint can understand that having spent so much time in warmer climates, Bruce would get cold.  
  
He could probably just turn up the heat, though. It’s not like the energy bill is going to hurt Tony’s wallet much, especially with the self-sustaining arc reactor _thing_ powering the Avengers Mansion.  
  
Clint watches Bruce from the doorway, caught by the gentle snoring sounds emerging from under the coverlet and the pile of blankets that are somehow so quintessentially _Bruce_.  
  
Clint would like to say that he is a master of stealth and the art of subtlety, but the truth is he stands there like a smitten idiot until Steve comes down the hallway, giving him a questioning look as he passes. Clint makes himself scarce after that.

 

***

 

Tony is asleep on the kitchen table.  
  
Clint actually does not notice this until he is halfway through the preparation of breakfast, and only manages to not spill his bowl of egg, milk and sugar all over the floor by the skin of his teeth as he manfully stifles a yelp.  
  
Tony looks like he hasn’t slept in a week, dark bruises under his eyes, his hair and shirt a mess. He’s drooling onto the tabletop a bit, and judging by the way he’s sprawled out and lurched over the table, he’s been there for a couple of hours at least. A coffee cup sits cold and abandoned next to one of Tony’s hands, filled to the brim.  
  
Clint takes away the cup, debating with himself whether he should wake Tony up or not as he rinses it out under the tap. In the end he figures that Tony will wake up if he’s ready, so Clint ignores him and continues to putter around the kitchen humming Springsteen over Tony’s soft snores.  
  
He’s not really a precision cook, mostly enjoys just throwing the ingredients he remembers in at approximately the right time and quantity, and for most things, this works out fine. You don’t really need to be a genius to make some stir fry or French toast, and there’s very few things that will mess up a pizza enough to make it inedible unless you set it on fire.  
  
Clint is putting the frying pan on the stove when an idea hits him.  
  
“Jarvis, is Dr. Banner up yet?”  
  
“No, sir.”  
  
Clint smiles to himself, singing ‘I'm On Fire’ under his breath and slicing another banana. He wonders when was the last anyone brought Bruce breakfast in bed?  
  
He ends up going a bit overboard on the breakfast, adding tea and yoghurt and even a little bowl of strawberries that he skims off Natasha’s shelf in the fridge, and Tony sleeps through all of it, for which Clint is grateful. If he gets caught he will never hear the end of this.  
  
Fortune smiles upon him, so the only person to interrupt him is Thor, who shows up in his boxers and leaves with _all the bacon_ and who seems to think eight pieces is a perfectly adequate amount of toast for one person.  
  
Clint scarfs down his own portion while flipping over the toast and banana for Bruce until they’re a perfect golden-brown and sprinkling them with cinnamon. Finally, after adequately sousing everything in brown sugar and syrup, he makes his way to Bruce’s room, feeling like one of those cooking show contestants plating up and delivering himself to the jury.

 

***

 

Bruce, unsurprisingly, looks adorable all sleep-mussed and bleary-eyed.  
  
“’Sup?” Bruce mumbles, trying to crawl out from under the covers, and Clint quickly sits himself down on the edge of Bruce’s bed, pinning the other man to the bed with the blankets to prevent him from getting up. “’S Manhattan on fire?”  
  
“I made French toast,” Clint says, brandishing the tray as if in proof, because he has no idea how people actually go about surprising other people with breakfast in a sane and charming manner.  
  
Bruce squints, rubs at his eyes as he tries to process the information that the Earth is not about to be shot by giant lasers or something. It’s sort of a pity that Clint’s never really been in Bruce’s room much before. He thinks he might need to rectify that.  
  
Clint gets lost inside his own head for a while, wrapped up in thoughts of hanging around on Bruce’s bed in the mornings and talking while Bruce goes through his krav maga routine or brushes his teeth in the ensuite, of napping there on lazy afternoons. Of crawling under the sheets at night and kissing every inch of Bruce’s freckled shoulders.  
  
When he comes back to himself, a small smile is tugging at the corners of Bruce’s mouth, his eyebrows raised in query.  
  
“Congratulations on your toast.”  
  
“It’s for you,” Clint says, setting the tray in Bruce’s lap. “I thought it might’ve been a while since you’d eaten. I know you’re not Tony but I know how you get when you get going on something and god knows I haven’t seen you all week.”  
  
A genuine smile lights up Bruce’s face, though it’s a little confused around the edges, a little surprised. A lot surprised, if Clint has to be honest, and that just isn’t on at all.  
  
“Thanks,” he says, picking up the knife and fork, holding them hesitantly. Bruce’s head is tilted at Clint, curious, as if he’s trying to figure him out. It’s the same sort of look Bruce gets whenever Tony storms in and drags him down into the workshop to come look at whatever he’s working on, bouncing and babbling technospeak about transistors and conservation of energy all the way down, and it hurts Clint a little that Bruce always seems so mystified by their attention, as if he’s not accustomed to being noticed.  
  
“Aren’t you eating?” Bruce asks, jolting Clint out of his reverie for the second time, a forkful of sugary toast hovering halfway to his mouth.  
  
“I ate mine while I was working on yours. It’s all for you, Doc.”  
  
Bruce digs into the food after that, obviously hungry, and makes appreciative noises. Clint watches, perched on the bed. Feeling like a creeper just sitting there, but too pleased with the way Bruce’s foot presses against his thigh through the covers to get up, he picks up the cup of tea to have something to do with his hands.  
  
“So, you guys have some kind of big thing on?”  
  
“’M sorry?”  
  
“I found Tony making friends with the kitchen table downstairs; he looked like he’d been run over by a herd of wildebeest.” Clint pauses. “….I should probably tell Cap about that.”  
  
“Probably,” Bruce agrees, amused.  
  
“What’re you working on, then? Spill.”  
  
Clint pops a strawberry into his mouth to punctuate the question, figuring he might as well eat some since he’s going to pay for stealing them in some excruciatingly painful and humiliating way and all.  
  
Bruce’s lips quirk, that smirky-shy tilt that Clint can’t help but love even though it never means any good for him. “Oh, this and that.”  
  
Clint rolls his eyes and munches on another strawberry. “Fine, keep your secrets.”  
  
When the food is mostly gone, they sit in silence for a while, both content. Eventually, Bruce motions at the yoga mat in the corner, saying “I should probably…”  
  
“Yeah, no, sure,” Clint babbles, slightly startled. He’d been enjoying the quiet and the fond expression on Bruce’s face. He looks good, healthy, no dark rings under his eyes anymore and that pale glow of exhaustion that usually accompanied the patented Banner & Stark Science Marathons gone. Clint had been trying to decide what the odds of getting beaten to a pulp were if he were to slide his fingers into Bruce’s unruly mop of curls and just go for it.  
  
“Oh, hey, can I watch sometime?” Clint perks up as soon as his brain gets back online.  
  
“Why would you want to do that?”  
  
“I’m conducting a study. It’s very scientific, you’d love it," he bullshits. "I promise I’ll even shut up for a little bit.”  
  
Bruce raises an eyebrow.  
  
“You don’t think I can keep my mouth shut?”  
  
“I’d say ‘only if your life depends on it’, but I seem to recall a number of instances of you punning on the comms in the middle of a firefight, so, no. I don’t think you can keep your mouth shut.”  
  
“Can so!”  
  
“Whatever you say. Why do you even wanna watch in the first place?.”  
  
“I’m interested! You-“ Clint swallows. “I think it’s amazing.”  
  
Bruce shrugs non-committally, his hands curled around his feet under the covers. “There’s not much to see, really.”  
  
“I’m serious. Would you let me, sometime?”  
  
“If you really want to.” Bruce’s shoulders bob again. “Yeah, okay?”  
  
“Awesome!” Clint says, jostling the tray in their laps and nearly spilling the leftover juice. “Whoops. Tomorrow, then? I got a, uh, sparring date with Nat in half an hour.”  
  
“Tomorrow’s good.”  
  
Clint picks up the tray and, feeling loose and happy, kisses Bruce on the forehead as he gets up. “Good,” he says, feeling the grin nearly splitting his face and not giving half a shit that he probably looks like a maniac.  
  
“You go do your Zen Master thing, then. I’ll be back in the afternoon.”  
  
Bruce sits on the bed, cross-legged, eyes wide and shocked. His cheeks are slightly flushed, Clint notes with delight.  
  
“Tomorrow?” Bruce asks, the wonder in his voice weaving the word into a host of different questions.  
  
“Yeah,” Clint nods, laughs, promises. “Tomorrow.”


End file.
